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3.62 AVERAGE
3.62 AVERAGE
This is a fabulous and engaging book about Galileo and his daughter, Suor Maria Celeste. Sobel provides a window into convent life, the power of the Catholic Church, and the emotional relationship between father and daughter. Reads like a novel, but is well-researched and beautifully executed.
challenging
informative
inspiring
relaxing
slow-paced
Content Warnings
Moderate: Chronic illness, Confinement, Religious bigotry
An unusual biography in that Galileo plays a smaller part and too little is known about Maria Celeste for her to be the focus. It's weird, but I felt it worked in providing a very different perspective on Galileo and his times. From Maria's writings it is clear how curious and intelligent she was; it is sad to think about what she could have become in a different era.
challenging
dark
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Based on the title, I expected this book to be more about Galileo’s daughter then Galileo, but this is ultimately a biography of the legendary man. I started this book with very little knowledge of Galileo and that really was what kept me reading; I wanted to know how it ended. The book can be very dry, the author quotes generously from source materials (including some really interesting letters from Galileo’s daughter to Galileo) which at times can be tough to get through. Over all, I liked it enough to finish it but unless you have a deep interest in the life and times of Galileo, I wouldn’t necessary recommend it.
More a biography of Galileo's life, this book provides considerable insight into Galileo's contributions. It is difficult to read (or in this version, hear) Galileo's confession required for his trial. The author makes the case that this trial was in part the result of poor timing and external influences as much as religion.
The book highlights Galileo's observational skills as much as it lauds his mathematical genius. Contributions in measurement (compass/calculator, telescope), astronomy, mechanics, motion... all based on the ordering/patterning of observations through math. So much more than just a man who went on trial for heresy. And these contributions were possible, in part, by the support provided by his very devoted daughter. Her devotion to him is obvious through the letters read in this book.
The book highlights Galileo's observational skills as much as it lauds his mathematical genius. Contributions in measurement (compass/calculator, telescope), astronomy, mechanics, motion... all based on the ordering/patterning of observations through math. So much more than just a man who went on trial for heresy. And these contributions were possible, in part, by the support provided by his very devoted daughter. Her devotion to him is obvious through the letters read in this book.
I found Galileo's Daughter to be both slow and fascinating. Or rather, it lead me to several fascinating thoughts, mostly more about the time period than the actual book/story, and mostly rage-filled. Everything I have to say is more about the time period described in the book than about the book itself.
The book itself: not a page-turner.
Let me just be strait and say: I'm really glad that it is 2010 and not 1610.
I'm really grateful that I live in the US and not a church-state. And I really really am motivated to continue supporting the separation of church and state in every single aspect of life.
I am thankful for freedom of speech. Thankful that writers and scientists and thinkers are not censored by a church.
I am thankful that it is no longer deemed acceptable (and celebrated even by the writer of this book) to imprison pre-teens in convents where they will be forced to live in abject poverty, endure malnourishment, perform unlimited manual labor, Catholicism, imprisonment and alternating celibacy/sexual abuse by priests for the rest of their lives!
I am shocked by the gall of someone who would imprison his daughters and then ask those daughters to do his damn laundry and manage his household and feel compassionate that he's on house arrest on his estate with plenty to eat and visitors and servants. And that his daughter did those things happily.
I don't understand the concept of doing someone's penance for them.
I don't understand the concept of respecting a church/organization that refuses to acknowledge the obvious just because it disagrees with something someone said once.
I don't understand the concept of being kicked out of believing something. In fact, this idea of religion as something you can be kicked out of is a huge and interesting concept.
I don't understand the concept of taking the Bible as fact.
I am horrified by the plague.
I do not and will not believe that church officials are particularly religious/good/spiritual...
What on earth were they teaching in universities before the understandings of physics that Galileo introduced. They even had complicated degree programs and credit requirements and all that stuff we have now... But they taught engineering without the concept of gravity, and medicine without the concepts of germs and with the nonsense of astrology! Makes you wonder what kind of bogus we're teaching each other these days.
I am amazed that anyone lived to be 70 years old when they were treating major diseases with candied oranges.
The book itself: not a page-turner.
Let me just be strait and say: I'm really glad that it is 2010 and not 1610.
I'm really grateful that I live in the US and not a church-state. And I really really am motivated to continue supporting the separation of church and state in every single aspect of life.
I am thankful for freedom of speech. Thankful that writers and scientists and thinkers are not censored by a church.
I am thankful that it is no longer deemed acceptable (and celebrated even by the writer of this book) to imprison pre-teens in convents where they will be forced to live in abject poverty, endure malnourishment, perform unlimited manual labor, Catholicism, imprisonment and alternating celibacy/sexual abuse by priests for the rest of their lives!
I am shocked by the gall of someone who would imprison his daughters and then ask those daughters to do his damn laundry and manage his household and feel compassionate that he's on house arrest on his estate with plenty to eat and visitors and servants. And that his daughter did those things happily.
I don't understand the concept of doing someone's penance for them.
I don't understand the concept of respecting a church/organization that refuses to acknowledge the obvious just because it disagrees with something someone said once.
I don't understand the concept of being kicked out of believing something. In fact, this idea of religion as something you can be kicked out of is a huge and interesting concept.
I don't understand the concept of taking the Bible as fact.
I am horrified by the plague.
I do not and will not believe that church officials are particularly religious/good/spiritual...
What on earth were they teaching in universities before the understandings of physics that Galileo introduced. They even had complicated degree programs and credit requirements and all that stuff we have now... But they taught engineering without the concept of gravity, and medicine without the concepts of germs and with the nonsense of astrology! Makes you wonder what kind of bogus we're teaching each other these days.
I am amazed that anyone lived to be 70 years old when they were treating major diseases with candied oranges.
It’s good…very interesting…but it’s not the book you might think it is. There is way more focus on Galileo than the daughter. This is understandable but makes the cover misleading. It also gets pretty heavy-handed with science at times, so beware if that’s not for you.
It’s not really about his daughter, it’s about Galileo himself, but it’s a pretty good biography. I find her writing style a little overblown, and both characters get hit by a truck at the end, but it’s worth reading.
An absorbing account of Galileo's life, covering his scientific discoveries and (of course) his heresy conviction. I was vaguely aware that he had to spend the last years of his life under house arrest because he had temerity to suggest that the earth revolved around the sun and not the other way round (well, write a book that suggested Copernicus, who first came up that view, may have had a point), but I never realised quite how harshly he was punished. He wasn't allowed to publish books or even teach after his heresy conviction (though he didn't exactly obey the spirit of this law - such an approach had got him into trouble in the first place). The worse thing he was, according to Sobel, basically persecuted because the the Pope at the time needed to prove a point rather than actually believing Galileo went against scripture.
However, this book is also about his daughter Virginia (or Suor Maria Celeste when she became a nun). Galileo packed both of his daughters off to a nunnery when they were young teenagers, which seems an awful thing to do by today's standards. But, actually, it was their best option - as they were illegitimate, they had flip all chance of marrying well. Virginia probably had opportunities she never would have done otherwise - she was essentially the convent's doctor (technically, apothecary). Judging by the letters she sent to her father, she was a bright and capable woman. One can only imagine what she could have achieved had lived in enlightened enough times to allow it.
However, this book is also about his daughter Virginia (or Suor Maria Celeste when she became a nun). Galileo packed both of his daughters off to a nunnery when they were young teenagers, which seems an awful thing to do by today's standards. But, actually, it was their best option - as they were illegitimate, they had flip all chance of marrying well. Virginia probably had opportunities she never would have done otherwise - she was essentially the convent's doctor (technically, apothecary). Judging by the letters she sent to her father, she was a bright and capable woman. One can only imagine what she could have achieved had lived in enlightened enough times to allow it.